Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Here’s advance notice that FOBIF’s Annual General Meeting will take place at Castlemaine Continuing Education Centre at 7.30 pm on Monday August 13.

After the usual business, there will be a short talk by Damian Kelly on the challenges and rewards of bird photography. Readers of this site will be familiar with Damian’s brilliant photos of local bird life, and he will illustrate his talk with some recent examples.

Brown Thornbill. Photo by Damian Kelly. This is one of three photos of birds by Damian included in the current FOBIF exhibition at Togs Cafe.

The June FOBIF walk led by Doug Ralph was to the remote Tarilta Creek Valley. Readers of this site will know that this area was the subject of controlled burn this Autumn. (See previous FOBIF post.) The day allowed walkers to see the effects of this burn first-hand.

Most of the walk was through bush that had been devastated. Mature trees were lying burnt on the ground and severe erosion was evident as a result of  the burning of steep slopes. Consequently parts of this once beautiful creek were now full of black silt. Apart from epicormic growth on burnt trees and some ground covers such as Scented Sundews there was little evidence of recovery. One of the walkers, Noel Young, commented:

I was dismayed by the number of large mature eucalypts that were completely destroyed in the bottom of the valley.  This represents the destruction of much needed wildlife habitat which has taken maybe 50 to 100 years to grow.  I doubt if this was intended, but it probably reflects the methods used, ie, weapons of mass destruction (fire bombing) with little or no ground supervision.  Hardly a “controlled burn”.

Below are two slideshows. The first one contains photos of Tarilta Gorge before the controlled burn. The second collection contains photos taken after the burn including on the walk.

At the end of the walk there was a short discussion led by Doug about the area and the effects of the burn. Mount Alexander Shire Councillor, Christine Henderson, spoke about the Municipal Fire Plan which has just been released and encouraged walkers to submit comments to Council about the burn in this area based on their observations. See recent FOBIF posts here and here for more detail on this.

The July FOBIF walk on 15 July will be to the McKinnon property at Yandoit. Malcolm Fyffe will be the leader.

FOBIF is planning an understorey planting and weed attack working bee at the famous Chewton Yellow Box on National Tree day, Sunday July 29, from 10 am to 12 noon.

FOBIF foundation president Doug Ralph at the Chewton Yellow Box--it's definitely a monument worth looking after. Photo: Bronwyn Silver

The tree, one of the oldest in the district, is on the Great Dividing Trail near Fairbairn Street. FOBIF last year did some bridal creeper eradication work at the site, and this is a follow up effort. The site is about 100 metres from Forest Creek, near a small school pine plantation. The quantity and variety of weeds in this area is quite desperate, but the potential for restoration of a beautiful creek valley landscape offers plenty of motivation for workers to put a dent in the evil empire.

There’ll be more details closer to the event–but put it in your diary now!

Tall Greenhood, Poverty Gully. Photo: Bronwyn Silver, 10 June 2012

The Tall Greenhood Pterostylis longifolia is one of 16 local species of Greenhoods. Worldwide there are 120 species with about 100 of these endemic to Australia.

Along with other Greenhoods, this one lures insects, usually gnats, to the plant with pheromones. When the insect touches the lower lip of the orchid (labellum) it flings the insect back into the hood and closes over it. The movement of the insect as it attempts to escape assists in the pollination process. Once the insect escapes the ‘trap’ is reset.

Tall Greenhoods are one of the earliest species of Greenhoods to flower in this area. They are characterised by long leaves and multiple flowers on each stem. As with other Greenhoods the flowers are translucent which is thought to encourage trapped insects to move towards the light.

To view several other types of Greenhoods have a look at our FOBIF Flickr Gallery.

The latest FOBIF Mamunya exhibition opened at Tog’s Cafe in Lyttleton Street, Castlemaine last Friday. It runs till the 13 July. The exhibition continues a tradition the Friends started in 1999 with their first Mamunya festival. This word comes from a Dja Dja Wurrung chant, ‘pata, mamunya, jirarunga,’ meaning, ‘wait a while, don’t touch it, growing up.’

This time twelve photographers have contributed their photos. The images highlight the often overlooked beauty and intriguing characteristics of our local flora and fauna. Five of the 26 exhibition photos are included in the slideshow below.

To celebrate World Environment Day in our Shire, an community fair will take place in the Castlemaine Market Building from 9am-1pm on Sunday 3^rd June. Whether people are interested protecting our diverse plants and animals, or sustainability initiatives and green technology opportunities, the fair will be a great source of information on what is happening locally.

The ‘mini expo’ format will give visitors an opportunity to talk to representatives from local environmental organisations, community groups and government agencies including: Connecting Country, Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests, Landcare, Mount Alexander Sustainability Group, Trust for Nature, Parks Victoria, Mount Alexander Shire Council and Castlemaine Community House – Growing Abundance.

Among the attractions of the day is the opportunity to see a specimen of the rare and endangered Southern Shepherds Purse – a plant growing in the Mount Alexander Regional Park and nowhere else in the world!

The Castlemaine Farmers Market and Castlemaine Market Building Art Showcase 2012 will be on at the same time.

Kirsten from Trust for Nautre with Swifty the Parrot at last year's World Environment Day

There are still places available at Alison Pouliot’s Fungi Ecology Workshop this coming weekend in Inglewood.

The workshop details are posted at:

http://wedderburncmnnews.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/alison-pouliot-fungi-workshops.html

Eighteen people turned out for the May FOBIF walk led by Barbara Guerin and Lionel Jenkins. The walk was largely focussed on the area’s mining history and Dominique Lavie took a series of terrific photos which are reproduced below.

The morning began with a walk to the top of the Monk with views like the one below.

View to the east from the Monk.

Along Cobblers Gully there were many overgrown remains of an early mining settlement.

Remains of the Cobblers Gully settlement.

The walk along Spring Gully is covered one of Victoria’s most intact collections of quartz reef mines with well preserved machinery foundations and mullock heaps.  The mines worked from the mid-1850s to the late 1930s.

Spring Gully Mine and Battery ruins

Mullock heap, Spring Gully.

Lunch was enjoyed overlooking an enormous quartz tailing dam.

Walkers having lunch at a crushed quartz dam, Spring Gully.

The walk back was mainly off-track. Towards the end we came across this extraordinary chimney pictured below. It was discovered after the walk that according to notes made by Jack Cocks on the Eureka Reef and surrounds the chimney is in the area of the Eureka South mine, which was not particularly rich and closed in the early 1900s.  The reason for the chimney is unclear as the building next to it is not big enough to have housed a steam boiler. It may have been a roasting kiln for mineral recovered from the Eureka Mine battery.

Thanks to Barbara and Lionel for leading their first FOBIF walk and to Dom for her photos. The next walk will be to Tarilta Gorge. Doug Ralph will be the leader.